Up to 50% of Android devices impacted by WPA2 vulnerability

Wednesday, 18 October, 2017

The exploit named Krack or Key Reinstallation Attacks pertains to the Wi-Fi Protected Access II protocol which makes it possible for anyone within physical proximity of a WPA2 enabled Wi-Fi router to keep a tab on user's every online move.

"The weaknesses are in the Wi-Fi standard itself, and not in individual products or implementations", vulnerability discoverer Mathy Vanhoef said in a statement. The hacker only needs to be within range of your Wi-Fi-not logged into your network-to take advantage of it and steal your data. The report says such an attack would work "against all modern protected WiFi networks" on operating systems including Android, Linux, Apple, Windows, OpenBSD, MediaTek, Linksys, and more, the Guardian reports. This could involve passwords, credit card numbers, photos and messages sent over a network to be stolen, or cyber attacks to be inserted into the traffic. Microsoft has said that it has already patched the vulnerability on October 10 to protect the Windows devices from the security flaw.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, the issue can be resolved through software updates, and the software industry has already started providing patches to improve WPA2 encryption.

Indeed, many companies are now developing security patches, which you should immediately download as soon as they're available. As for Google, it's promised to beam out an update in the coming weeks starting with the Pixel series on November 6. "If the victim is very close to the real network, the script may fail because the victim will always directly communicate with the real network, even if the victim is (forced) on a different Wi-Fi channel than this network", says the krackattacks blog. And you can watch the video above for additional information.

All WiFi users are advised to update their devices to the latest security update as soon as it's available.

As I've previously written, the padlock indicates that traffic to and from a site is encrypted - via the HTTPS protocol- which basically means no one but that site can read any sensitive information you share.

Unfortunately, changing your passwords won't help this time around. The ideal solution right now would be to unhook these devices from the Wi-Fi network, and check with the manufacturer for KRACK patches.

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